The MIDIVampire is a $34 4-voice polyphonic mini-synthesizer that doesn’t need any batteries, because it draws its power directly from its MIDI connection. The MIDIVampire has 16 different wavetables, AM, FM, attack, decay, reverb, and a slew of other parameters  all controlled by MIDI CC messages. There’s also a MIDIVampire II – a 4-voice drum machine that…

Digital download sales are likely to increase again in 2013. But by one measure, downloads actually peaked in 2011. Download sales accounted for 73% of digital revenues in 2011 and fell to 70% last year, according to annual shipments tracked by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Not that download sales have declined over…

For more on this story, click here “Curating music experiences is something that Rhapsody has done since its inception. As Listen.com, our original charter was to curate the best legal MP3s on the web. Over the years, through features such as hand-programmed radio, mood and activity playlists, genre explorations, artist interviews, original audio and everything…

“Let’s get it, let’s keep it sexy,” shouts TNGHT’s Lunice Pierre as he exaggeratedly saunters across his backstage trailer towards his manager, trying to keep a straight face. The two are still practicing their new adaptation of a secret handshake, often breaking into fits of giggles, when Pierre’s DJ partner Hudson Mohawke (Ross Birchard) peers…

Hewlett-Packard says that a lawsuit over a mobile phone app allowing men to measure the size of their penis doesn’t add up. At issue is the “Chubby Checker,”  the punning app which in February provoked action in California federal court by Ernest Evans, the singer-songwriter famously known as Chubby Checker. Evans says that HP has…

Papoose responds to Kendrick Lamar’s verse on “Control,” and no one’s safe. Following replies from Joell Ortiz, B.o.B, and Cassidy, the Brooklyn rapper, who Kendrick gave the stage to at Summer Jam, defends his home turf and throws shots at his fellow MCs. “Ayo Kendrick, good lookin’ on that Summer Jam move, but you ain’t…

MIDI controller-maker Nektar has recently upgraded their DAW support, and extended the range of directly controllable Plug-ins and Rack Extensions. New VST Plug-in Maps for Cubase / Nuendo. Nektar has added 54 insert and instrument maps to their VST plug-in collection, each “carefully handmapped at Nektar HQ:” These maps not only give you tactile control…

This is why we can’t have nice things, Internet. Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap mixtape is one of the year’s best albums — it was also released online for free in April. So what was it doing on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart last month, when it peaked at No. 63 with 1,000 copies…

With a studio album that’s been dubbed a “classic” by many in the Hip Hop community and a newly-released verse that’s placed the rap world in a frenzy over the past week, many have been quick to comment on Compton emcee Kendrick Lamar’s ability to clench the top spot in Hip Hop. But according to…

In order to shield “Blurred Lines,” the hottest hit of the summer, Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and Clifford Harris, Jr. are going to court. A lawsuit was filed Thursday in California federal court by the trio against Marvin Gaye’s family and Bridgeport Music, which owns some of Funkadelic’s compositions. At issue are complaints about similarities…